The more that I have learned about Ed Tech, the more I discover how much "stuff" is out there. There is a program for every particular niche and then some. One program does something one way and a second program does seemingly the same thing but slightly differently. It begins to become difficult to sift through after a while.
This is why I believe that when all is said and done we need to make sure not to loose sight of the goal. Our ultimate goal is to use these tools in order to better prepare our students, to help enable greater access for their learning, and to help them think creatively. Could this be done without Ed Tech? Maybe, but Ed Tech tools can make it more easily possible to fulfill these goals.
My suggestion is keep your eye on the field and constantly try new things because the world of Ed Tech is changing every day.
Friday, June 8, 2012
Friday, April 6, 2012
Web 2.0 Tools
The tools that Web 2.0 can be great however the piece which still frustrates me is that they are not all seamlessly in on place. It is bothersome to have to go in and out of various accounts in order to accomplish a task. It is great to be able to access these files and tools from anywhere via the web but I have to keep track of various accounts and log-ins currently. I look forward to the day when Web 2.5 can bring bring all of these different tools that exist on the cloud under one roof so that my work on them is more integrated.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Wiki Project Management
There is a great new feature on Wikispaces that enables a teacher to have better control over timing of an assignment using Wiki's. This new project management system allows the teachers to automatically allow specific groups of students access to a Wiki project without having to turn on the Wiki manually. It can be done from the outset when you are creating the project. What a relief for a teacher not to have to worry about going back in to make it go live! Thank you Wikispaces.
Check out the following link for a quick tutorial:
http://blog.wikispaces.com/2012/03/a-new-way-to-schedule-events-for-your-projects.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wikispaces+%28Wikispaces+Blog%29
Check out the following link for a quick tutorial:
http://blog.wikispaces.com/2012/03/a-new-way-to-schedule-events-for-your-projects.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wikispaces+%28Wikispaces+Blog%29
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Not losing ourselves to a world beyond our own
I think that there is great wisdom in our tradition in placing most emphasis on the here and now and not focusing all that much of the hereafter. God placed us in this world so that we should watch over it and take care of it and serve God through it. I feel it a shame that we feel the need to send out students into virtual worlds in order to peak their interest or broaden their horizons. Why can't we have our students engage in the world that is all around them rather than sinking into an alternate world like Second Life. I stop and wonder as to whether SL is yet another human attempt at creating the Tower of Bavel. Tyring to become creators and controlers of our environment rather than having to live in the world that God has given us as it is where we are not in control. By losing ourselves to SL we can escape our own realities. Why do we need to visit virtual Rome? Why not either visit the real Rome or else spend more time focusing on actually paying a bit of attention to the towns and cities that are right around us. Instead of learning about poverty in Africa through SL, why not have our students volunteer at the local soup kitchen? Rather than learning how to interact with an Avatar, why don't we spend more time face to face with our students helping them learn how to interact with each other?
Monday, March 5, 2012
Keeping It Fresh
So I just signed into Prezi for the first time. I still remember when Power Point was first introduced. It was the rave and everyone started using it. If you didn't use it, it was like you were a pariah and your presentation was considered second rate. In truth, it did in fact help to organize ideas and present them in a linear way. But, the presentations were in fact then linear. The presenter would go from start to finish in a straight path with no real ability to fully connect multiple points of the presentation to another. Enter Prezi... This newish tool, which allows its users to develop more of a mind-map, enables the a presentation that is more fluid with multiple connection points. the presenter can easily move back and forth between ideas and layer the concepts visually. I found that it not only helps me present something nicely but also helps me think more clearly about the connection between the various pieces which I am presenting. I am sure that it will continue to push my thinking further as I use it more... until the next presentation software comes out and expands another aspect of visual presentation.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Too much of a good (mediocre) thing
It was only about a year and a half ago that I took the plunge and set up a Facebook page. Then this year, I took yet another step and established a twitter page. Since then I have been looking into and singing up for other social media site. As I delve deeper into social media, what I have realized is that it is all overwhelming. For every service, it is a yet another account with yet another log-in and yet another network of streams and streams of e-conversations. How in the world is a person supposed to be able to keep up with this information overload. And, how is a person supposed to be able to sort through the droves of what every human being on the planet finds of personal interest. No matter how specific the network it still seems like a brain dump. I have found that the more networks that I join, the fewer that I pay attention to at all. So instead of spreading out to more social media networks, I have decided to constrict my usage back to the initial two - Facebook and Twitter. Even these have lost some of their edge for me. It seems troubling that in today's day and age everyone under the sun can have a public forum whether they have something intelligent or interesting to say or not... including this blog. I apologize in advance for any time that I have wasted for my readers - three minutes better spent on planting strawberries.
The context where I can see value is when the network is so small that a very specific framework can be laid out for usage with a particular goal in mind. One such example would be a classroom setting. A tool such as Edmodo could be a great platform by which to engage students outside of the classroom. Classroom notes, texts, and even videos could be posted to a class network. Classroom conversations can be continued online and students could ask questions to the network. HW and test dates could be posted to the calendar and assignments can be posted as well. When the network is a class, the use of a tool such as Edmodo can actually benefit student growth by expanding the classroom beyond the 45 minutes during which a teacher sees students in class. It also provides a space in which to help students organize classroom work.
So although I would not suggest becoming a follower of this blog, I would encourage teachers to try out social media platforms for the classrooms.
The context where I can see value is when the network is so small that a very specific framework can be laid out for usage with a particular goal in mind. One such example would be a classroom setting. A tool such as Edmodo could be a great platform by which to engage students outside of the classroom. Classroom notes, texts, and even videos could be posted to a class network. Classroom conversations can be continued online and students could ask questions to the network. HW and test dates could be posted to the calendar and assignments can be posted as well. When the network is a class, the use of a tool such as Edmodo can actually benefit student growth by expanding the classroom beyond the 45 minutes during which a teacher sees students in class. It also provides a space in which to help students organize classroom work.
So although I would not suggest becoming a follower of this blog, I would encourage teachers to try out social media platforms for the classrooms.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Productivity tools to help ease the work flow
The two main purposes of productivity tools seem to be to help ease the work flow and to be able to connect teams together around information. A great tool that I have discovered is http://www.instapaper.com. It is a tool that enables you to instantly save a link to a running file for later viewing or sharing. I have lots to read throughout my day and little time to read it at the moment that it comes across my desk. The ability to file a link a way to a place which is easily accessible from any online device and which has a way to create folders to organize these links has posed invaluable to my work. It has enabled me to keep up with my reading without having to read things on the spot. It also gives me a way to share these links with my colleagues. It can share via email, Facebook, and Twitter to name a few. In a world of over inundation of information it is nice to be able to file things away in an organized fashion for later read/use as well as being able to share the information with others.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Vodcasting - everyone is doing it...
Not too long ago Vodcasting was new media. Like many technologies that have hit the scene over the last few years, they come fast and furious. Not every technology makes it (we usually don't even notice the ones that do not) but the ones that do tend to alter the way we get our information and interact with others in our world. Vodcasting is certainly one of those world changing technologies.
It used to be that the majority of our information came from written text. Even with the advent of the internet, people were still getting their news from written online news. But the tides have turned. More and more people are actually getting their information from online through video. Even straight audio is on the decline.
What is so great about vodcasting is that it connects the viewer to image. Like the transition from radio to TV, people like to be able to see the speaker. This kind of technology enables anyone to share not only their voice but also their facial expression and body language with their audience.
The downside to these technologies is that everyone under the sun can produce one. And so everyone under the sun seems to do so. Which means that there is no dearth of of vodcasts. This can be a little overwhelming when looking for something specific that meets your goals and is something of quality. But with the ease of use, students can become engaged in producing their own related to in class work as well as begin to follow others that may be of interest to them or related to a class they are taking.
It used to be that the majority of our information came from written text. Even with the advent of the internet, people were still getting their news from written online news. But the tides have turned. More and more people are actually getting their information from online through video. Even straight audio is on the decline.
What is so great about vodcasting is that it connects the viewer to image. Like the transition from radio to TV, people like to be able to see the speaker. This kind of technology enables anyone to share not only their voice but also their facial expression and body language with their audience.
The downside to these technologies is that everyone under the sun can produce one. And so everyone under the sun seems to do so. Which means that there is no dearth of of vodcasts. This can be a little overwhelming when looking for something specific that meets your goals and is something of quality. But with the ease of use, students can become engaged in producing their own related to in class work as well as begin to follow others that may be of interest to them or related to a class they are taking.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Mishna if there had been Twitter
As I read about micro-blogging, I can not help thinking about what the Mishna would have looked like if there had been twitter. There would have been Rabbi Yehudah Ha'Nassi, typing tweets to his followers. 140 characters or less. Every letter would count. Every word would be packed with meaning. Precise and to the point. Isn't that kind of like what the Mishna is already but on paper?
At the same time, now that I have signed up to follow a whole bunch of tweet feeds, I can't help but think that the twitters that are sent today are by no means as concise or meaningful as Mishna. Everyone under the sun is tweeting - when they are brushing their teeth, where they are having their coffee, and a thought that came to them while on the bus commuting. How does one weed out the useful from the mundane and yet not be over-inundated by 'useless information overload'; it escapes me. I even hesitate writing this blog and putting it out there for others to read because really, as if these are truly original thoughts that you the reader has to spend the 30 secs to read rather than putting that 30 secs into something more useful.
What can I say? I guess I am still old school. I know I need to move past it and get with the flow of the times.Hey, I'm blogging aren't I? It's a start, no?
At the same time, now that I have signed up to follow a whole bunch of tweet feeds, I can't help but think that the twitters that are sent today are by no means as concise or meaningful as Mishna. Everyone under the sun is tweeting - when they are brushing their teeth, where they are having their coffee, and a thought that came to them while on the bus commuting. How does one weed out the useful from the mundane and yet not be over-inundated by 'useless information overload'; it escapes me. I even hesitate writing this blog and putting it out there for others to read because really, as if these are truly original thoughts that you the reader has to spend the 30 secs to read rather than putting that 30 secs into something more useful.
What can I say? I guess I am still old school. I know I need to move past it and get with the flow of the times.Hey, I'm blogging aren't I? It's a start, no?
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Blogging about Blogging
Seems rather funny that my first blogging assignment for my ed-tech class is to blog about blogging. Anyway, I thought that I would take the opportunity to reflect on a part of the reading for the class. In our reading for this week, it mentions the use of blogging as a tool for facilitating a professional development community. I never really thought about the use of a blog to be a running PD dialogue for a school community. I know that it also discusses the ability to go beyond your school walls to connect with other educators. But, I found the possibility interesting to have all teachers in one school on one internal blog so that they could cross pollinate ideas, share reactions to a common PD book (kind of like an online book club), and just generally post links to other articles or ideas that they have which could help their peers professional growths. The one questions which I ponder is how motivated teachers would be to actually check the blog or post to it, especially if they are not so tech savvy. But even if they are, it is still one more thing to do in an already busy line of work.
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